Bringing thought back to the debate

I just read a very interesting article on newmajority.com. In it, a conservative attends a town hall and describes his experience there. As we’ve seen on youtube and in the mainstream media, he experienced a good deal of anger there. From the article:

The town halls are exactly what you’re seeing on television. The crowds are overwhelmingly conservative — and I mean Glenn Beck conservative, not David Frum conservative. I’m talking angry, ready-to-roll conservative, not rational, let’s-discuss-philosophy conservative. I can’t think of any more appropriate word than ‘redneck’ to describe most of the crowd. Literally every person who took more than ten seconds to preface his question was shouted down by “Ask your question!” by an array of overfed hicks. They were also prone to shout “You work for us!” and “You just don’t get it!” at Cardin, as if Cardin should be expected to represent the ideals of the 9/12 Project or something.

What is causing all this anger? Why are people so angry? I keep hearing, “I want my country back!” yet I am struggling to understand where the country went. The America we experience today is not all that different than it was a year ago at this time, although 3.7% more of us are now unemployed. We didn’t see this anger during the election, or after the election.

So what is the fuss all about?

I wrote earlier about Rush Limbaugh lying to you. But he isn’t the only one.

Consider what people are being told by mainstream media sources:

President Obama is not a natural-born American citizen

President Obama and the Democrats want to set up “death panels” to euthanize the old and handicapped

We are getting the British health care system

We are getting the Canadian health care system

The system we are going to get is worse than the British, Canadian, and our current health care system combined

Conditions today are very close to those in Nazi Germany

Conditions today are very close to those in Fascist Italy

President Obama is acting like Hitler

President Obama is acting like Mussolini

President Obama is a socialist

President Obama is a fascist

President Obama is a totalitarian

President Obama is a communist

President Obama is a dictator

President Obama is a racist

President Obama is the anti-Christ

President Obama is going to pay reparations to black people for slavery

The Democrats have created the biggest deficit ever because they want the country to go bankrupt.

President Obama wants the country to fail so he can reach his goal to rebuild the country into a worker’s paradise.

The President is working on a deal to combine Canada, Mexico and America into one sovereign alliance similar to the EU.

The President is going to take away gun ownership.

Given that all of that is obviously true, I suppose there is a good reason to be mad, after all! When’s the next town hall meeting?

Which is more distressing? That the media and talk-radio circuit spread such obviously false information? Or that so many believe it without checking to see if any of it is true?

I get a kick out of reading this sentence: “President Obama is a socialist and a great example of that is the GM bailout!” The sadness is that many would read it and not sense the irony; rather, rage against their future assignment to Collective Farm #328.

John… Roland… I get your points. I read the blog you refer to.
But, I still think this is silliness.
The real debates of our time get locked up in these futile discussion and name calling of a few on the fringe.

I want to focus in on the issues of health care since it seems to be the hottest topic in your post.

“many protesters of health care reform are older…” How many? There are also many younger protesters.
“Of this group, substantial portion are on Medicare”
How do you know that?

You go on to that it doesn’t make sense to you that they protest when they have such a good system like medicare. You’re kidding right? I suppose next you are going to say that the social security system is the best retirement plan we could possibly have?

On Sarah Palin’s statement about the “Death Panel” and “level of productivity in society” Here is her actual facebook post http://tinyurl.com/ljjzrl

1st – OH BROTHER! Let’s not get all knee-jerky about Sarah’s use of hyperbolic language.

2nd – Healthcare has always contained in it making life and death decisions. Part of what I think SP might be trying to say is: She doesn’t want the government making those decisions. If there is still free-market health care, I still get to choose who I will trust for those decisions.

How about a discussion on what she is talking about? Watch this video of Rep. Michele Bachmann addressing statements made by Presidential Adviser, Dr. Ezekial Emanuel:
I’d like to research the statements made in this video. But after searching the web for 20 minutes, I couldn’t find the original documents written by Dr. Emanuel. I did find many articles referring to the documents. Some obviously against his statements and one that was saying his statements were used out of context. Well… then show me the context.

My point – let’s enter into a real debate, try our best not to take people literally when they are being ironic, sarcastic or hyperbolic. If you think someone is being literal and it is a ridiculous statement, seek clarification.

Is Obama Hitler? I don’t think anyone actually thinks or says so. Does having an adviser who’s words seem to be saying that we will allow certain people to die in order to save money (or even in order to save others (all together, “Life Boat”)) sound a little bit like Hitler? I guess it depends on context.

Additionally, he has spent a good amount of his career researching bioethics. Someone has to decide on a good way to manage limited resources, such as livers. 10 people need new livers, and 2 are available. What is the right framework to decide who gets one? Someone has to research that, and he is one of those who has.

Michelle Bachmann has proven repeatedly that she is not interested in researching several issues she speaks out about. Pick an issue, global warming, Iraq, the US Census (she argued that it was used to intern the Japanese, therefore it is bad. It wasn’t true, but whatever…,) other members of Congress being anti-American, and many other issues. She represents the synaptic deficit disorder wing of the Republican party; the cancerous group of Republicans that believe research, reason, and logic are not valuable. Rather, vitriol, paranoia, and grim predictions are what she communicates on a regular basis.

I started this blog in part to combat the departure of reason from the Republican party, because I want to be a Republican. The rise of conservatism in recent history happened because of the power of the minds of William F. Buckley and others like him. They used the power of reason to persuade their opponents to their side, and they would hear the other side out and assume that everyone involved in the debate was arguing in good faith.

They believed all of us wanted the same thing: a strong country. We conservatives need to get back there.

Wonderful reply Roland. I am looking forward to reading more about this. I guess that I am just “doin the knee-jerk baby” when it comes the attitudes and name calling. I know both parties participate in it and I feel it decreases the possibility of real debate.
Part of me has become jaded – cynical even, thinking that we will never really know the truth of a bill or a proposal until we see it in action, which is usually too late.
I love competition. I love the fact that we have more people in the health insurance game. If the government wants to play in it too, that is fine with me I am just not sure I want tax dollars going to it mainly because I believe that anything the government thinks it can do, private companies can do better – and for less money.
I heard someone on NPR say that the argument that having a public (non-profit) option would hurt for-profit companies. The response to that was “look at USPS and the competition of UPS and Fedex.”

The cool thing about the USPS is that it gives people who might not be able to afford FedEx/UPS a less expensive option to still get done what they need to have done and it’s available to everyone, even if they don’t have a FedEx or UPS in their area…